The Fingertips That Held The World
by blahosaurus
Summary: [AU] She’s held the responsibility so long, the weight has melted into part of her, until she became the solitary wolf she had feared. But now she’s being drawn into another world. A world she might not be able to hold.


**T_h_e F**i**nGer**_tips_** t**Ha**t **_He_**ld T_he_ w_O_rl**d

**_Pro_logue **

Be**ca**_use_ N**o**t A_ll_ St**o**ries S_t_**art** At **T**_h**e**_Be_gin_**n**_ing_

There was a mixture of adrenaline and terror in her veins that had her heart racing, as if trying to run away from the moment. Thoughts slipped in and out in bits and pieces, like the short breath she was so desperately trying to control.

The grounds were quite. Night quiet. There was the distance sound of music, like the ghost of a party a long time ago. A memory. Everything seemed an old-record memory now. Overused and blurred.

Her sweating palms rested against the rough bark of the tree. Pause. Feel. Hear….

Nothing.

Fear was escalating. Prey fear. She could feel the taste coating her mouth in bitterness. At least she had always known life was short. She had borrowed too many days, and someone was chasing her to take them back.

The air smelled like spring. Like life and moist dirt. It hung heavy around her, the air still and quite. The leaves of the trees only whispered, watching the scene that unfolded before them in rapt attention. Threatening to give her away as they let moonlight peek through in curiosity, melted silver on the earth floor.

_Just One Wrong Move…_

For the first time in a long time, she was afraid for her life. The fact that she knew she wasn't invincible had never stopped her before. She wasn't cut out from a book or a movie, she wasn't, by any means, a hero to be made an example of. But she was a fighter. And maybe, for a while, it had been enough. Not giving up, not slipping into desperation, had saved her. There had been a breaking point, a long time ago, between tears and anger, that could had ended this story before it even started. But, even if all will to live for living and enjoying had condensed and dissolved into ocean water and taken far away from her, she had fought on. Maybe not for her, maybe not for those she had loved. But for not giving up.

For fighting.

How could you kill someone that had nothing to live for but to beat death itself?

But the truth was, she was afraid to fight now. _Scared _for her **life**She would have laughed in the past. In the face of fear itself.

But past and present were different lives to her. She was living someone else's life, it seemed. The girl she used to want to be.

The one with the real life. The one with no ghost or skeletons.

The girl who didn't _have_ to fight.

But, in the end, she figured out everybody has something worth fighting for. And so the whole world fights.

Her breath was quick, more from fear than anything else.

She paused. Listened. Watched. There was a hummingbird in her chest, flapping it's wings. Dieing for a way out.

With quick, agile steps she slipped into spilled darkness, melting into the shadows as if the night was made just for her. She thanked the god she didn't believe in for giving her enough sense to wear something dark, even though it was an overflowing dress. Too bad this wasn't a movie and there weren't any strategically placed scissors to cut it short. Or even flimsy material to rip. Even if it was beautiful

_Meant For Her, he had said. _

But she had never related value to beauty anyway, like the rest of the world did. Beauty is seen like taste.

Everybody has their own.

Her hair had fallen out of her clips and holds. Tendrils curtained open in front of her face, blue eyes sharp and attentive. Her muscles were tense, ready. She had stumbled into a reflex complexion. She didn't have time for thought or consideration. She was made of actions and consequences.

Animal mode eyes radared a spot dipped in thick shadows, the foliage heavy above it. It had been lucky, she guessed, that she had the naturally preserved forest to hide her away. Too bad she didn't believe in coincidence. She could taste the trap at the back of her throat.

She waited. The air around her was oppressing, heavy with betrayal. She was a caged creature, shackles raised, teeth bared. Because, even as she wanted to sink into her happily even after made dress and cry her poisonous green tears that burned her cheeks like acid in shame, she wanted to live even more.

She stilled suddenly.

There. A noise

Closer.

Stop. Disappear. Rustle crunch fear.

Could they hear her heart? It was booming in her ears. Her fingers were trembling. She reached under her dress, knotted around her hips to avoid tripping and rustling. The handle of the sheathed sword was like a secret in her hand. Deadly. Cold despite the warmth of her body. she left it there, waiting like a crouching tiger.

She scanned the treetops. She could just see the full moon mocking her between chlorophyll green leaves, darkened and dusted silver. For a moment the world seemed to hold it's breath. The moment stretch, dragging time as milestones fell on their necks. And she knew that only death could do that.

From somewhere shaded black, her name was whispered like a sin.

And she was running. Through air and trees and branches. Ribbons of blood decorated her skin, but panic was as blind as love and it was filling her eyes. She had to get in the open, somewhere where she wouldn't be so disadvantaged in battle. In the night infested forest, enemies could hide in branches, ambush her from behind trees, use the shadows that were cast by the trees like spells to their advantage. In an open space she would be able to battle for the life she was used to, because she had been born into a war zone. Violence and survival coated her biconcave blood cells, recognised by her body as anything but an impostor.

Her tracking and flight skills were ones rivalling those of a wolf. She run in a straight line lest she absolutely had to avoid an oncoming obstacle. And while her eyes were trained on getting her to the clearing she knew was there, her other senses lived on the back of her head, feeling out those who chased after her. Her angles were acute, making it hard to shoot her down. She was the shadow of a mocking bird, one second she was there, and the next

She

Was

Not.

And suddenly, between one second and another, she was out.

The clearing was wild and un-dominated. The grass grew tall, trying to graze the sky above the weeds that choked the earth. Dandelions let their seeds sway, cotton white against the star filled black. In a fluid movement she turned to face the part of the forest she had just escaped from.

For a moment, stillness conquered time.

Her panting breath filled her silence as the moonlight glowed like a pasted-on-the-ceiling little kid decoration. The stars winked and whispered, light years away. The night was unbearably clear, and in the middle of the unpolluted, protected area, the milky way was shining in all it's glory.

A perfect night to die on.

If she had a moment to spare on something that wasn't fight, she would have been amazed at the sight. The land had been greatly fought over, people wanting to build from hotels, to apartment buildings, to theme parks, with no regret or remorse spared on the animals killed and the natural habitats destroyed. But the owner had not been pushed or shoved, and in the end the piece of forest, with a few clearings, a strand of a river, a waterfall and a little lake, had stayed untouched, except the one building where the party had been hosted. But that was rented out without time table and with preference. And so beauty lived on in the little pocket of the world.

And though life went on, and history stoned over, she couldn't wretch herself from the present. She had learned to live in nothing but the moment, and there she would stay until the second she died.

"I'm waiting to play, boys. Don't tell me you've chickening out." She called out, reckless in a attempt to be rid of the fear holding her back. Her eyes were dilated to almost all black, sucking up light like black holes. And as the moment tensed to an unbearable point, for nothing is more terrible than knowing you are in the calm before a storm, a figure stepped out of the trees. Over them, the sky hung navy and too clear, and her heart ached with insignificant wishes and hopes that dwindled, out-of-reach like the burning balls of hydrogen so far away. Their features were cast dramatically by the lack of real light. A creature of darkness and death.

And in that moment she knew she would have to fight only this one opponent. Her prize was life, and her failure's consequence was death. The world once again bleached into black-and-white. There was no remorse she would accept for what it was. No conscious regret. There was only time for action, because one cannot look backwards or forwards when they are so close to the last pages of their own story.

"Ready for death?" her opponent asked. She smirked slyly at her enemy's words. Mistake number 1) Judging your opponent before the fight has begun.

"I wouldn't know, I've never suffered it before. You, on the other hand…" the sentence was playful, confident. Masking the moment for what it really was.

Her opposite did nothing but mirror her smirk.

Their eyes locked, cunning, calculating, cold. Warrior eyes.

Suddenly the silence rippled with the clear song of an unsheathing sword. It circled across the clearing, a deadly ring to it, almost piercing in itself. A shiver of apprehension shook through her.

And just like that, the fearful thoughts, the doubts and the feelings, melted away as the battle took the forefront of her mind. Things had changed, more than she ever thought possible, but this was what she lived for. With this battle, she protected her own flesh and blood, and other life apart from hers, but in the moment, as the air charged up with power and bloodlust, she became the creature she had been transformed in.

A protector, a saviour, a prisoner.

Without hesitation, her blade was unsheathed, an even sweeter song in her ears. The rush of the hunt was in her, fire in her blood.

She felt _alive_.

So much for scissors or ripping. With quick movement, the excess material of her dress was cut away, metal against silk. A slit was created for easily parted legs.

She was ready.

And now she could feel it. The ghost of power.

Her smile widened. Feral.

She was a sight to behold.

They took up a fighter's position, agile as a wild cat. Knees bent for sudden movement, weight on the balls of feet for quick reaction, right foot in with their fighting arm.

She had always viewed sword fighting as the most beautiful thing in the world. A dance too deadly to be called that. It was something that, like a piece of art, could hardly be described. It was movement in perfection, death in it's most graceful form. This was her true life.

Somewhere in the shadows, someone was watching. And she knew exactly who it was.

Muscles tensed and relaxed.

Step step.

Cross, slide

Judge and…

(All thoughts were banished except maybe for one.)

The battle begun.

_This is for you. _

**OoO**

_Fight or Flight creatures_

_Eyes painted black _

_Girl of the night_

_With glow-in-the-dark hearts _

_(I can't be s_ee_n with you)_

_Forbidden melted shadow skin,_

_Mixed with moonlight_

_And fortune-telling cracked palm-lines _

_(We taste like murder and regret) _

_Her life started with a _

_Happilyeverafter_

_And all went down hill from that. _

**I can't be seen with you **

_OoO_

_**A/N**_

**FreSh MeAt **

FoLloW tHe UnderLined LeTterS

Welcome to my new sensation!

The prologue. Shorter than the chapters will be. Chapter one is completed, and will be posted here SoOn! Review and make me happy will ya?

Ok, I've tried to dig up something completely fresh with this idea. I know you can't find out the plot from this, but you can the nature. If you like the way I write, are looking for some good angst and actual _plot_, romance, and a fic that doesn't consist of Inuyasha and Kagome trying to get together and then finally doing so in the last chapter (as if getting together is the hardest bit, what do you people think love is? An easy ride?) then keep on readin', because that's what you've found.

I debated explaining this, but because in a book you would have the following chapters there to read without interval, just let me say this isn't really the beginning (concerning the time line). I mean, the clue was in the 'chapter' title, but there are some dull crayons out there. (No offence guys, by getting this far I already love you). So, don't change the channel and stay tuned to; The Fingertips That Held The World.


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